Curiouser and Curiouser! on iraq

More die in Falluja car bomb

Tue, 28 Oct 2003 13:09:29 +0000

Fresh suicide attack in Iraq. Four civilians are killed by a car bomb in Falluja, as coalition leaders link foreign fighters to the Baghdad blasts. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

This is very ugly and I have little confidence in either the American or (for the little they have to do with the policy on the ground) British governments to improve it. Whither the UN and NATO?

Blair be damned!

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:19:45 +0000

Blair wants rift with US healed. Europe and America must heal their divisions over Iraq and work together on winning the peace, says Tony Blair. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

Blairs suggests that the divisions between Europe and the US are simply the result of anti-Americanism. In this he not only ignores America's absurb lurch to the right but also the truth - at least as I have observed it - that what is growing is a sense of resentment about the Blair and Bush administrations and how they behave, rather than about European views on the general population.

I for one have no interest in healing the rift between Europe and the Bush administration. Nor do I think this will have any impact on the situation in Iraq since it will just signal more of the same. Blairs original argument, that getting our feet under the table on Gulf War II would give us some influence, has been proved a hollow mistake. Let's not give Bush any more authority to make things worse.

When a future US administration re-instates a respect for the rule of law, as it applies to itself rather than as they would apply it to others, then I think there will be less need to heal divisions and more willingness to resolve the issues that we have collectively brought upon ourselves.

The poor bastards who will impeach Clinton but cling to Bush

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:11:04 +0000

"The president ought to be ashamed". Former Sen. Max Cleland blasts Bush's "Nixonian" stonewalling of the 9/11 commission, his "lies" about Iraq, and his flight-suit photo op on the USS Lincoln after "hiding out" during Vietnam. [Salon.com]

There are two US national scandals in this piece:

The president and his administrations handling of 9/11 and the war in Iraq.
The big media companies spinning things for their pals in the administration.

For Iraqi's wondering about an American style democracy handed to them, at gun-point, by America I can't help but think they are sceptical. And who could blame them for voting for an Islamic state?

I also think it is shameful that Clinton can be impeached for lying about having sex with an aide whilst Bush and his cronies lie & disemble daily, imprison without trial, dismantle America & sell it (where do you think all this money is coming from to fund your war?) and reap the profits.

"For shame!" It makes me angry to think about it.

Operational mess? or Strategic blunder?

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:51:21 +0000

"The yellow light is flashing". Matt Drudge says Wesley Clark's statements to Congress in September 2002 made the case for war in Iraq, but the transcript proves otherwise. [Salon.com]

I went to the congress site and read some of the transcript, statements made by Richard Perle and also the Wesley Clark. I think what I read is very interesting. Clark not only doesn't make the justification for Bush's Persian distraction II, he argues cogently against it. Here is the relevant part of the transcript:

But, the problem of Iraq is only one element of the broader security challenges facing our country. We have an unfinished worldwide war against al Qaeda, a war that has to be won in conjunction with friends and allies, and that ultimately will be won as much by persuasion as by the use of force. We have got to turn off the al Qaeda recruiting machine. Now some 3,000 deaths on September 11 testified to the real danger from al Qaeda. And, I think everyone acknowledges that al Qaeda has not yet been defeated. As far as I know, I haven't seen any substantial evidence linking Saddam's regime to the al Qaeda network, though such evidence may emerge. But nevertheless, winning the war against al Qaeda and taking actions against the weapons program in Iraq, those are two different problems that may require two different sets of solutions. In other words, to put it back in the military parlance, Iraqthey are an operational-level problem. We have got other operational-level problems in the Middle East, like the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Al Qaeda and the foundation of radical extremist fundamentalist Islam, that is the strategic problem. We have got to make sure that in addressing the operational problem, we are effective in going after the larger strategic problem.

I think his key points are:

We have got to turn off the al Qaeda recruiting machine.
Winning the war against al Qaeda and taking actions against the weapons program in Iraq, those are two different problems that may require two different sets of solutions.
We have got to make sure that in addressing the operational problem, we are effective in going after the larger strategic problem.

It seems to me that what is happening in Iraq is a complete reversal of these points, and not for the better.

The gulf of Baghdad incident

Wed, 21 Jan 2004 09:03:28 +0000

...
It is also odd that opponents of conspiracy theories often allow that conspiracies have occurred in the past, but refuse to contemplate their existence in the present. For some reason, you are bordering on the bonkers if you wonder about the truth behind events like 9/11, when it is established as fact that in 1962 the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman L. Lemnitzer, tried to convince President Kennedy to authorise an attack on John Glenns rocket, or on a US navy vessel, to provide a pretext for invading Cuba. Two years later, a similar strategy was deployed in the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident, when US engagement in Vietnam was justified in the light of the false allegation that the North Vietnamese had launched an unprovoked attack on a US destroyer. Are such tactics confined to history? Paul ONeill, George Bushs former Treasury Secretary, has just revealed that the White House decided to get rid of Saddam eight months before 9/11.
...
[The Spectator]

I thought this was well put. We have a wealth of evidence that suggest that our governments routinely lie to us and engage in activities which are in the best interests only of vested interests and yet, seemingly, people won't accept it and act upon it.

More people should see this.

Mon, 15 Mar 2004 21:22:22 +0000

In Rumsfeld's own words [Salon.com]

It is not caving in to the bees to stop poking a stick into their hive.

Wed, 17 Mar 2004 10:49:34 +0000

I've just read a very powerful article by Lew Rockwell which is the first article I've read that resonates with how I feel about this whole pre-9/11, post-9/11, Iraq War, American Empire, Madrid, Terrorism mess we've gotten ourselves into.

After the bombing, Spaniards didn't shout: "They hate us because we are good!" or "Spain is Number One!" or otherwise pledge their religious devotion to the consolidated Spanish state. Not at all. Instead, they said: that jerk at the top brought this on, because he sold out the nation to appease the Bush administration. There was no Spanish Patriot Act, no creation of a Department of Homeland Security. Instead, there was a wave of good sense which amounted to the following: let's stop making these people mad by invading and occupying their country.

...

Americans have somehow come to believe that all acts of terrorism must result in a bigger government. As a result, we have just come to accept the idea that the government will get away with ever more violations of our liberties. In the Spanish case, however, the terror act may result in diminishing government power. This is wholly justified, just as bee stings should teach a person not to agitate them without reason. It is not caving in to the bees to stop poking a stick into their hive.

...

Why didn't Americans respond similarly after 9-11? The intellectual elites of both parties and all approved political ideologies agreed to impose a taboo in the days following the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. That taboo was against discussing the events outside the vacuum of that one day. We were all supposed to pretend that the United States government was 100% pure and innocent and had never done anything to anyone.

Incredibly, this was a plausible scenario to many Americans, who had no clue that the US was directly responsible for perhaps a million plus deaths of children in Iraq with its sanctions policies (according to the UN but say it's half that for the sake of argument; it makes no difference). Americans are also famously ignorant of Islamic concerns about Infidels With Guns running around in Mecca.

Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administrations Public Statements on Iraq

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 13:52:14 +0100

237 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq that were made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice. These statements were made in 125 separate appearances, consisting of 40 speeches, 26 press conferences and briefings, 53 interviews, 4 written statements, and 2 congressional testimonies. Most of the statements in the database were misleading because they expressed certainty where none existed or failed to acknowledge the doubts of intelligence officials. Ten of the statements were simply false.
Source: Karen Kwiatkowski/LewRockwell.com

You may also want to take a look at the congressional report this is drawn from. A note about the report itself:

This Iraq on the Record database contains statements made by the five officials that were misleading at the time they were made. The database does not include statements that appear in hindsight to be erroneous but were accurate reflections of the views of intelligence officials at the time they were made. The entire database is accessible to members of Congress and the public at this location.

Wish you were here!

Mon, 12 Apr 2004 19:13:11 +0100

The best-rested war president in history? [Salon.com]

And then I listen to the news about American (and presumably British) troops attacking Iraqi towns. About how the marines are disappointed that the new Iraqi police force isn't doing their dirty work for them (quelle surprise, they know they have to live there when the marines, greatfully, bug out).

Oh yes, this is working out just super.

All's well in Iraq. Nothing to see here folks. Move along now.

Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:45:34 +0100

Tracking the spoils of war

Greenspan tells Congress rates will rise

Fables of the Iraqi reconstruction

At least 3 killed by tornado in Illinois

Nine killed in Saudi car bomb explosions

Suicide car bombs kill 68 in Basra, Iraq

$700 million here, $700 million there

Burning through money in Iraq

[From a day in Salon]

I can almost hear the cheering from here...

Send him a postcard

Tue, 04 May 2004 19:35:47 +0100

How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons. The hawks who launched the Iraq war believed the deal-making exile when he promised to build a secular democracy with close ties to Israel. Now the Israel deal is dead, he's cozying up to Iran -- and his patrons look like they're on the way out. A Salon exclusive. [Salon.com]

This makes for fascinating reading.

I think any reasonable American (of whatever persuation) must vote against George Bush in the next election. Not because he is monstrously wrong in his policy decisions (although I believe it to be true) but because of the risk that he is monstrously wrong.

The dust won't settle properly for another year at least. Do you really want him still sat there smugly telling you how great everything is when you have finalized realised he has, after all, dropped you in the shit? On the other hand, if Iraq does turn into a democratic paradise in the Middle East you can always send him a post card to say 'sorry.'

The System Works

Fri, 07 May 2004 08:24:11 +0100

White House aides said Bush had chastised Rumsfeld for failing to tell him about pictures of prisoner mistreatment. [Source: Salon]

It's clear the torture system works and is in full swing (cf. CIA contract interrogators). Is this the cost of invading other countries? That we have to have torture to get the intelligence we need to save our asses?

Also I think that what has Bush so steamed is that Rumsfeld didn't tell him about the leak of the photos. I didn't believe his mock "outrage" at all; This is a man who makes fun of people he has executed (see #1, #2, #3) what does he care about Iraqi prisoners?

Break out the violins

Sat, 08 May 2004 11:40:04 +0100

Doh!.

We're functioning with peacetime constraints, with legal requirements, in a wartime situation in the Information Age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media,... Donald Rumsfeld [The Obvious?]

"It will be china shop rules in Iraq: you break it, you pay for it."

Mon, 10 May 2004 08:24:00 +0100

Peter Galbraith: How to get out of Iraq. [John Robb's Weblog]

A very long and interesting piece from someone who has experience in Iraq and seems to have done a lot of thinking about how to go forward. His conclusion is that the best odds of avoiding full-on civil war are to establish a loose confederation of 3 republics. Each republic having management of it's own security & administration. The central authority would be a weak presidency, rotating among the 3 groups, with control over foreign policy, monetary issues (e.g. sharing of oil revenues).

What's your problem?

Mon, 24 May 2004 19:17:00 +0100

Cameras too candid for Rummy? [Salon.com]

Riight... because the photo's getting out was the real problem.

The correct interpretation

Sun, 30 May 2004 14:47:19 +0100

To the labour party canvassers who had the misfortune to knock at my door this afternoon. I do hope you will correctly interpret my reaction as:

I'm very sorry but I'm afraid I won't be voting for your party again after what you have done, in my name, and without my permission.

Thank you.

What else do they got?

Tue, 15 Jun 2004 19:45:23 +0100

Recycling weak evidence for war [Salon.com]

Nothing is what.

Who pays? Who benefits?

Mon, 04 Jul 2005 10:21:30 +0100

I finally got on to speak for my 82 seconds (all the time Larry King Live could spare for the peace message) about how this war is a catastrophe and how we should bring the troops home and quit forcing the Iraqi people to pay for our government's hubris and quit forcing innocent children to suffer so we can allegedly fight terrorism somewhere besides America. How absolutely racist and immoral is it to take America's battles to another land and make an entire country pay for the crimes of others? To me, this is blatant genocide. How dare we export our brand of flag-waving death and devastation to a people who have been through so much already? It wasn't bad enough that our sanctions killed tens of thousands of Iraqis before we even started an active aggression against them. Now we have to create confusion, chaos, and disorder there. How dare our president and Congress, and we Americans, allow this to continue?[Cindy Sheehan - It's not worth it]

I'll try harder from now on

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 13:14:05 +0100

Or if they had considered the American intervention in Lebanon, they would easily have found the following evaluation by their own military of a situation much like that of Iraq. Of the involvement in Lebanon in 19821983, Lieutenant Commander Westra states:
"American policy was formulated without adequate consideration of the complexity of the Lebanese conflict or its political and religious antecedents. Additionally, our policy was pursued from a purely American perspective without consideration of the goals and motivations of numerous factions involved in the fighting. As a consequence of these policy shortcomings, American military forces were mistakenly committed as a first resort before all diplomatic and other means had been exhausted."
"The key problem of our involvement in Lebanon was that American military forces were mistakenly committed in order to solve a complex set of political problems that had no military solution. By submitting future regional conflicts to a "Lebanon Test," policymakers will have an in-depth model delineating the multitude of considerations and pitfalls affecting policy formulation and the use of military force to secure the objectives of policy in regional conflicts."
If many in the military knew better, wouldnt this information reach the President? Mightnt it even seep out to the bloodthirsty editorial writers and thence to the gung-ho public? [ Bushs Folly - Michael S. Rozeff]

How much more of this imperial folly from the US and British governments are we going to stand for? I think it's a shame more people in the UK didn't reflect on what Blair (and to be fair a raft of previous UK governments) have done and choose to vote against extending his time in office.

I think we needed a breather and an opportunity to reflect upon what kind of country we want to be and where our interests lie. I don't believe they lie in interfering with Middle Eastern politics, propping up the Saudi regime, etc...

It may be that ceasing to intervene in this area is going to cause us economic turbulence but I think that's inevitable anyway with the policy we are persuing. I also think that all the money being funnelled into Iraq and the War on Terror could be better used.

I've heard what I think is a lot of nonsense about why the London bombings occurred. Especially people talking about why they aren't related to the war on Iraq. The usual claim being that 9/11 happened before the war on Iraq so it can't be related. I find it hard to believe that even the people peddling this nonsense really believe it.

Question: Why didnt the terrorists strike Switzerland instead of England? After all, the two countries share the same freedom and values, dont they?
Answer: The Swiss government didnt attack Iraq. It doesnt meddle in the Middle East. It didnt participate in the brutal sanctions against the Iraqi people. It doesnt maintain an empire of overseas bases. It doesnt go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. The Swiss government minds its own business.
Thats why the terrorists did not strike Switzerland.
Of course, the same cannot be said of England, whose foreign policy in the Middle East can be summed up as follows: Whatever the U.S. government does, the British government supports and joins. Thus, the British government participated in President Bushs recent war on Iraq a war against a sovereign and independent country that never attacked the United States or England or even threatened to do so. It is a war that has produced the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people not just American and British soldiers, but also Iraqi soldiers and civilians none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the United States.
Thats why the terrorists struck in London instead of Bern.
Thats also why the terrorists struck in New York, both in 1993 and 2001, and at the Pentagon.
The terrorist retaliations are rooted in anger and hatred not for American and English freedom and values, as President Bush and Prime Minister Blair maintain, but instead in anger and hatred for U.S. and British foreign policy.
Why would it be otherwise? Why should foreigners especially radical, violent ones react any differently to the killings and maiming of their family, friends, and countrymen than Westerners do when their family, friends, and countrymen are killed or maimed by foreigners?
Consider the torture, rape, sex abuse, and murder scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Why wouldnt Middle Easterners react in much the same way that Americans would react if American men were treated in a similar manner in some foreign prison?
What will be the response of government officials to the terrorist strikes in London? You guessed it: more severe government crackdowns on civil liberties to protect us from the terrorists, which not surprisingly was the same position that they were taking before the terrorist strikes in London. [Terrorism Comes With Empire - Jacob G. Hornberger]

As citizens I think we fail to be interested in what our government really does and the effects it has. The world is so interconnected, how can be believe that invading other countries and killing their people, however justified we feel, will not provoke reactions from them and those that empathise with them?

On the day of the London attacks I couldn't escape the feeling that if I lived in Iraq I'd probably be so numbed to the concept of bombs going off and people being killed that, unless it was one of my own dead or missing, that I'd shrug and, maybe, hope for a quieter tomorrow. We think we are safe here, so it's obviously shocking to be targeted for an attack.

People being killed is terrible but let's seek perspective. Our military, on the orders of our elected government, have been killing people en masse for some time now and, despite the rhetoric about minimizing civillian casualties, there are a lot of dead men, women, and children who didn't sign up for a war in their homeland.

I am sorry to the people who have died, here and abroad, that I haven't done more to bring my government to account for it's actions. All I can do is try harder from now on.

Today I am a very angry man.

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:32:11 +0100

So, I made the mistake of turning on the news today and hearing all about the wonderful things our security forces are doing to make the world a better place. And all the pundits, talking heads, and common folk with their reactions.

So, I'm supposed to get used to armed police on the streets of London for the next 2 decades? I'm supposed to be happy to pay an extra £0.5m, and upwards, per day to pay for this privilege? Oh and more for the mayors armed, plain clothes, policemen on the tube? This is on top of our chunk of the $700 billion the sham liberation of Iraq is costing by the way.

I'd like us to consider an alternative. How about we start by throwing Blair to the International Criminal Court in the Hague and make an apology to the sovereign nation of Iraq for illegally invading their country, killing many thousands of their people, and allowing their national treasures and resources to be looted and destroyed. How about that?

I'd also like to see any proof anyone has that this enhanced police presence makes us one iota safer? I'm not talking about whether the rubes the BBC interviewed today "feel reassured." I mean really, actually, less likely to be killed in a bombing or other attack.

I'm sick of this.

Of course I'll still respect you in the morning

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 08:55:05 +0100

We might begin our transformation with the lesson offered by a friend of Kurt Vonnegut as the two returned from Europe following their World War II soldiering. Vonnegut asked this man what he had learned from his wartime experiences, to which his friend replied: "not to believe my government." [From Butler Shafer - The War Against Cindy]

Would you buy a used country from this man?

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:19:04 +0100

Politicians are very much like amateur investors. That is because they, like amateur investors, also seek to evade responsibility for past mistakes. Ego rules them, not objective reality.
They face an objective market: votes. If voters perceive that they have been injured by the past decisions of today's incumbent politicians, they will withhold their votes or transfer votes to future challengers. So, politicians do their best to (1) re-define visible failure as a success, either present or future; (2) blame someone else for the visible failure someone who cheated; (3) avoid all reference to the failure, hoping that voters will not notice. All three strategies are called into question when a politician admits publicly that his policies have produced failure. [ Sunk Costs and Tar Pits - Gary North ]

Gary North writes about how the Iraq war was a bad Imperial investment but one which the American people and their President have found it hard to walk away from.

Out of the bonfire of Iraq

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 10:04:43 +0100

Why does Condi Rice think that democracy would wipe away the hatreds that the US and Israel have created in the Middle East? How does she know that Middle Eastern democracy would not uphold terrorism against Israel and the US? In the US democracy is upholding an illegal war based on deceit. In Israel democracy is upholding genocidal practices against the Palestinians. Does Condi Rice really believe that democracy, a mere political form, insures that people and their governments never behave wrongly, immorally, or violently? [Paul Craig Roberts]

This impassioned piece by Paul Craig Roberts expresses the frustration that I feel with British and American states that are, seemingly, in the grip of insanity and taking on the mantle of an unstoppable force.

Out of the bonfire of Iraq new fires will spread and we made it happen.

I despair.

Our continued disgrace

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 08:52:08 +0100

Bill Bonner asks: is the American Imperium is doing the world a favour by cutting it's own throat?

...

Empires can rarely resist the temptation to fight a war...if they think they can get away with something. George W. Bush saw an increase in his poll ratings coming. People love a "war" president, at least until they've lived through a real war. He could hardly wait for an opportunity to put on a flight suit and land on a real U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, ostensibly to rally the troops, but more importantly to rally the lumpenpublic.

...

And now, by putting Saddam on the stand, they offer the old man a chance to make his case. Yes, the nation was a hellhole when he ran the place, but at least it was a hellhole for the Iraqi people, by the Iraqi people, and of the Iraqi people.

...

The best way to win a war, said Sun Tzu, is to let your enemy defeat himself. That is roughly what U.S. forces are doing in Iraq.

...

Among the charges against Saddam is that he killed more than 140 men and teenaged boys in Dujail. His defense will be that the people of Dujail tried to kill him, which of course they did. He might mention that every brutish leader does the same.

...

And on the very day in which Saddam appeared in court, a news item in the International Herald Tribune reported that American planes had destroyed a village in Iraq, after two U.S. soldiers were killed in it. The village harbored insurgents, said the United States More than half the 70 people killed, said eyewitnesses, were innocent bystanders.

...

"Many Iraqis welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein because he ruined their lives," writes Patrick Cockburn in the Independent.

...

"The billions supposedly spent by the U.S. much of it Iraqi oil money produced almost no benefits. The country became a feeding trough for politically well-connected U.S. companies and individuals...Even Iraqis were shocked to find that almost the entire $1.3 billion procurement budget of the defense ministry had disappeared...Much of the Iraqi government exists only on paper. It is more of a racket than an administration. Its officials turn up only on payday. Elaborate bureaucratic procedures exist simply so a bribe has be paid to avoid them.

...

"U.S. generals seemed to pride themselves on their ignorance of local customs," Cockburn, who has spent the last three years on location, continues. During that period, imperial overlords have nearly accomplished what seemed impossible when the war began; they have made Saddam's rule seem to many Iraqis like the "good old days."

...

The Iraqi police general in charge of the serious crimes squad was shot through the head by an American soldier who mistook him for a suicide bomber.

...

Things have gotten so bad in Baghdad that the prostitutes have left, says Cockburn.

...

I've quoted liberally because this was one of those pieces which had bitter clarity ringing from every paragraph. Bonner makes it clear that we are pretty close to the bottom of the barrel in how Iraq is being abused. How long can this continue?

I'd like to think that Blair is ashamed of what he has been party to. Of what he has done in our names by helping to commit such attrocities. Those people who gave Blair a blank cheque should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sick of our leaders and their willfull adventurism, not asked for by us, but paid for by us in money and blood. Their legacy will not be better health, better schooling, or more money in our pockets but Afghanistan, Iraq, Terrorism, and ID Cards. Blair is a war criminal and every bit as much as Saddam Hussein deserves to face a court. That we should allow ourselves to continue to be lead by such people is a disgrace upon us all.

1984 is 21 years behinds schedule

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:37:57 +0000

It's typical of a government project to be vastly behind schedule and vastly over budget. So the governments current rampage through what used to be our civil liberties makes for a pretty typical government project.

As William Rees-Mogg writes in yesterdays Times:

The British are certainly less free than we were in 1997 or 2001.

The government is leading a charge against the very notion of privacy. It is using the fear of terrorism - a fear that it has conspired to manufacture - as a means of gaining public support for measures that a civilized society would reject outright.

Britain, if it ever was, is not such a society. Sure, I don't want to go live in Iran but don't tell me that we are on a path to Utopia!

And, worse yet, they're doing all this with money that they loot from our bank accounts through taxation.

The Government used to pretend they would cost £100 each; the London School of Economics estimates that the cost will be £500 a head, or £28 billion in all. I certainly don’t want to be compelled to spend £500 to give the Government a complete picture of my private existence.

I am not afraid of terrorism.

Sure, I don't want to be in a bus or tube train that gets blown up. But we have to ask ourselves, under what circumstances do organised groups of individuals take up arms against society in general?

The answer to our problems is not to screw the citizens further whilst conspiring with a bunch of asshats to rob and kill foreigners. If you look at the history of our actions abroad it seems clear to me that we face problems of our own making.

If you're in a hole. Stop digging!

And, to paraphrase Mike Rogers,

It’s not like the Saddam's troops were getting their rowboats out to invade the United Kingdom

If we hadn't conspired with Saddam for parochial advantage, and then with the first Bush administration to remove Saddam, and then with the Clinton administration to bomb Iraq further into the stone age, but had left him to his own devices it seems likely to me that, in time, his own people would have rejected him. Our best weapon in that cause was our liberal, open, societies and our rapidly improving standard of living.

Both of which this government seems intent on doing its level best to fuck up.

Team Amerika have their priorities right

Thu, 11 May 2006 12:23:42 +0100

As Jon points out, the top US priority in Iraq is clearly to build the biggest swimming pool and country club in the country.

Who wastes good money ($592 million of it) on water, electricity, and health care for the natives when they dont even make a good workforce!?!

Bringing the government to account

Wed, 24 May 2006 09:41:26 +0100

I've just used WriteToThem to send another letter to my MP Theresa May to point out my strong objection to the UK participating in, or assisting with, any US military action against Iraq. I've had two good responses from Ms. May to my recent letters about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill and I await her response here with interest.

The crux of my argument is that the British government have, against my will, made me responsible for the death of thousands of Iraqs, hundreds of my countrymen, and untold suffering at a cost to myself and other British taxpayers, now and in the future, that I shudder to imagine. I reject absolutely the right of this (or any other) government to compound this misery by taking action against Iran who are a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (unlike India, Pakistan, or Israel).

I've also noticed that WriteToThem now allows you to send messages to the Lords as well. In particular you can search, using keywords, for Lords that have spoken on a particular issue. I've identified 2 or 3 that I shall be sending further messages to.

I look at WriteToThem as one of the single most powerful tools the Internet has delivered. It's not accountability as I would have it, but within the confines of our present system of government it's a big step forward. Well done MySociety.

My disgust for our leaders intensifies

Wed, 31 May 2006 08:50:00 +0100

GWB: America will fight the terrorists on every battlefront, and we will not rest until this threat to our country has been removed. (Applause.)

Washington Post: It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. . . . [He] had used a wheelchair since diabetes forced a leg amputation years ago. . . . In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children – 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia. Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots – in Ali's house and two others – were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha's hospital said. A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died. Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.

GWB: [O]ur enemies are dismissive of free peoples, claiming the men and women who live in liberty are weak and lack the resolve to defend our way of life. . . . [O]ur enemies believe that the innocent can be murdered to serve a political vision.

Washington Post: In Haditha, families of those killed keep an ear cocked to a foreign station, Radio Monte Carlo, waiting for any news of a trial of the Marines. "They are waiting for the sentence – although they are convinced that the sentence will be like one for someone who killed a dog in the United States," said Waleed Mohammed, a lawyer preparing a file for Iraqi courts and the United Nations, if the U.S. trial disappoints. "Because Iraqis have become like dogs in the eyes of Americans."

Via Robert Higgs

The rhetoric of US and UK politicians in relation to this phony war they have created just disgusts me now. I feel tainted by my association with them.

Cartridges

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:01:29 +0100

Second is the testimony of the villagers, and of two officials of the U.S.-backed Iraqi police, Major Ali Ahmed and Colonel Farouq Hussein. These are men who risk their lives by their cooperation with the Coalition. The villagers say soldiers entered the house and killed the occupants; the house was later hit by the helicopter then bombed, apparently to cover up the killings, some of the villagers surmised. The Iraqi police said "all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head." Later, a Knight-Ridder reporter saw a preliminary report indicating that the 11 victims had multiple wounds. This tallies with Simpson's viewing, which showed that one of the dead children had been shot in the side. Everyone who saw or examined the bodies agreed that the victims had been shot, most likely by bullets from the large pile of American-issue cartridges found inside the house, which can also be seen on the video.

Chris Floyd

Somnolence

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 12:32:34 +0100

I thought I had linked to this 2004 piece by Martin Van Creveld (professor of history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) before, when I first read it, but searching my archives I can find no trace. I'm making up for that by posting about it now as it strikes me, reading it today, that it's even more relevant than it was in 2004.

It describes Moshe Dayan's experiences (as a former Israeli commander, defence minister, and politician) reporting on the Vietnam war (in I think 1965) and contrasts it to the state of Iraq in 2004. In my opinion the two intervening years only make the comparisons more striking.

During the next few days his feeling that the Americans did not really know where they were going was reinforced. Everywhere he went he was received courteously enough. Everywhere he went the people he encountered were committed and extremely hard working. Intensely patriotic, they seemed proud of what they were doing and would not admit any errors. At one point he asked whether they had changed their methods since they first went to Vietnam and was told that they did not have to do so since everything worked much better than expected. Thereupon he noted that the US Military never made any mistakes; however, that comment he kept to himself. He was subjected to a flood of statistics – so and so many enemies killed, so and so many captured – meant to prove that the situation was well under control and that large parts of the territory of South Vietnam, as well as its population, were now safe against terrorist attack. As he noted, however, even a few elementary questions revealed that things were far from simple. Later he was to discover how right he had been in this; in the whole of South Vietnam there was not a single road that was really safe against the Viet Cong. Nor was there anything to prevent the enemy from returning even to those places that had been most thoroughly “cleansed” and “pacified.”

If you replace Vietnam with Iraq and Viet Cong. with insurgents (or freedom fighters -- your choice) this could have been written in the Times today. Later on it says:

Flying to Vietnam by way of Honolulu and Tokyo, Dayan summed up his impressions so far. Almost all of the Americans he had met were pleasant enough. None, however, could tell him how they were going to win the War. Most could not even give a convincing reason why the US had to be in Vietnam in the first place; at least one had said that, had President Johnson been presented with a way to get out, he would have jumped on it and withdrawn his troops. What really infuriated them was any attempt to question their motives. As far as they were concerned their cause was noble and just. The fact that the Communist States did what they could to support the Viet Cong and North Vietnam was bad but understandable. They were, however, puzzled by the attitude of their European allies. Those Europeans supposedly shared America’s liberal-democratic values. Still many of them were strongly critical. At a loss to explain the problem, the Americans attributed it to cowardice, envy, and the resentment that arose from Europe’s own recent failure in waging “Imperialist” war. He thought that, in ignoring the Europeans, the Americans were making a big mistake.

How true. What we read about Iraq today tells us:

Most Americans are pleasnt
They don't know why they are there
They don't how to win
Their cause is "noble and just"
They are infuriated when you question their motives
They are puzzled by liberal, democratic, European states not supporting them
They explain this in terms of cowardice and envy

What is scary for me, as a 30 something, is realising just how long the Vietnam conflict went on. In my ignorance I imagined it was a few years in the late 60's and early 70's. According to Wikipedia however, it was fought between 1959 and 1975.

By the time America pulled out they had suffered over 58,000 dead and nearly 3 times as many wounded. Total deaths approximated 1.4 million soliders from both sides and over a million wounded. I'm not sure how to read the figures for civillian dead and wounded but it seems to be somewhere between 4 and 8 million total.

For the sake of argument lets call it about 8 million total dead and wounded. What did they die for? What was won? Was it a worthwhile sacrifice to win hearts & minds and establish democracy? Well as far as I can tell it wasn't worthwhile in Vietnam and I have no reason to believe it will be in Iraq either.

Back in Paris Niceault had told him the “battle for hearts and minds” would not work, given that that the Vietnamese had their own cultural traditions – as well as “immensely beautiful women” – and that “Californization” was the last thing they wanted.

...

the campaign for hearts and minds did not work. Many of the figures being published about the progress it was making turned out to be bogus, designed to set the minds of the folks at home at rest. In other cases any progress laboriously made over a period of months was undone in a matter of minutes as the Viet Cong attacked, destroying property and killing “collaborators.” Above all, the idea that the Vietnamese people wanted to become Americanized was an illusion. All the vast majority really wanted was to be left alone and get on with their lives.

I certainly hope that the next American administration is prepared to admit that Iraq was a mistake and should never have happened because this will allow them to change course and to leave. With us gone who knows what will happen but it will be in the hands of the Iraqi's. If it goes the worse for us well... that is the price we pay for meddling and, perhaps, learning that price will inform and teach us not to listen to our leaders when they bay for foreign wars.

But of course the next administration will hold to the line democracy at the point of a sword and we'll still be in this mire 10 years from now looking at casualty figures that rival the bloodbath in Vietnam. For those that question this I would remind you that the numbers in Vietnam were achieved even though the North Vietnamese had no effective means to strike at foreign homelands.

But of course I am crazy. I think the answer is not to fight harder and be more vicious but to bow out and leave them alone. I think our leaders (on both sides) should explain themselves before a war crimes tribunal and the evidence.

Neither will happen of course. Let the somnolence continue.